Shawn Conner offers five reasons to check out the festival of lights celebrating the Indian new year:
1. A Vancouver Guldasta
Now in its second year, Diwali in B.C. is a multidisciplinary festival that celebrates the festival of lights (Diwali) during the annual Indian new year. The 2018 edition is a sixweek event with theatre, dance and “culturally specific workshops” in various B.C. locales, and is themed New Horizons. Kicking off the festival is a remount of last year’s A Vancouver Guldasta. Written and directed by Vancouver-based Paneet Singh, the ’80s-set play concerns a Punjabi- Sikh family living in south Vancouver, their daughter’s relationship with a Vietnamese refugee, and the Indian government’s invasion of the Sikh holy shrine, the Golden Temple.
2. The Believers Are But Brothers
Written and performed by English playwright Javaad Alipoor, the one-man play received positive reviews when it opened at the Edinburgh Festival in 2017. Using digital media, fictional accounts, and the results of his research, Alipoor explores how and why some young men become extremists.
3. Shyama
A collaboration between dance artist Arno Kamolika, musician Shankhanaad Mallick and Chokhani, Shyama is a Bharatanatyam (a genre of Indian classical dance) interpretation of a romantic tragedy told through dance and song. It was written by Rabindranath Tagore, the first nonEuropean Nobel-laureate poet (in 1913).
4. Bombay Black
A hit at last year’s Vancouver Fringe Festival, Anosh Irani’s Bombay Black is about an Indian exotic dancer and her embittered mother.
5. Diwali on the road
Classical and contemporary dance, live music and more are part of the Diwali in B.C. presentations in Vernon, Maple Ridge, and Coquitlam.
DIWALI IN B.C.
When: Oct. 3 to Nov. 17 Where: Various locations in Vancouver, Coquitlam, Vernon, Maple Ridge, Nanaimo Tickets and info: diwalibc.ca